Left Behind
by Wickfield
Summary: David Copperfield. When four people left this world, four children stayed.
1. Drowndead

**Drowndead**

_051. Water._

* * *

The wind is picking up again – he can hear it. It blows the ladies' aprons about; they look like white sails as they flap in the wind. He used to think that the wind, and the storms, were very thrilling and exciting, like in the stories of adventurers he had been told by the fire by his Pa and by Pa's brother, that good kind man with the white hair and beard who smelled of tar and fish. Ham don't think so, anymore. He tends to believe, that he never will again – but then it also feels as if he won't never be able to think, no more. Because really, he don't know _what _to think.

Pa was here, and then he weren't. There it is. There ain't no more to it. One day he slung a rope over his shoulder, and called good-bye as he did every day afore ("I – I didn't even look up from my game – " Ham thinks, numbly), and went out in the little boat with Uncle Dan and his fellow fishermen. And then that night there was a storm, and the women tried to keep him at the fire, but he wanted to rush to all the windows, cheering at the size of the waves and priding himself that he weren't afraid of the thunder, no sir, not him.

And then, very late, Uncle Dan and the others come back, looking tired and pale, and Pa weren't with them. Uncle Dan was real quiet, and held his hat in his hands, which Ham had never saw him do before, and which made the ladies cry. Then he got down on his one knee, and called Ham to him, and told him Pa had gone on, to fish with the one who had cast his net for men, in order to give them life; and Ham had begun to cry, and wondered why his uncle didn't.

He isn't crying now, as they all stand solemnly upon the beach. He's had enough of the water, and the waves, and the wind – though the waves crash, and the wind blows, whether he wants them to or doesn't – and he keeps very still as he hears the holy words spoken, which he don't quite understand, and which he's not sure he wants to understand.

The only thing he knows is that he feels his uncle's hand on his shoulder, and is glad it's there. _ If I can't trust the sea no more, _he thinks, _then at least I can trust him. _


	2. Inheritance of the Father

**Inheritance of the Father**

_050. Spade._

* * *

A grave was no fearsome thing to this lad. A grave was a thing for taking a stick and a string and pretending to fish in; its stone a thing to learn your letters by before you could go to school. Why, then, are the common emotions of grief and dread present on his face, as he listens, on this cold March day, to the fierce sound of a spade striking hard, half-frozen earth?

You probably have never paused to think what a murderous sound this is – the repeating stabbing of the shovels over and over, deeper and deeper still, six feet deep into the ground – the clang of metal against wayward rock, and the grunting and sighing of the diggers in their task. He hadn't thought about it before today; the sound of the spade, at least, was at one point a comfort to him. His father was a gravedigger – used to be – and in the old days, knowing his father was there, just outside the door of their little hovel beside the church, "carving out the eternal resting-place" of all those who died, seemed Important.

Perhaps those fine people didn't consult – didn't even look at – father in this world. But he controlled their place in the next; how ironic then, this day! When his old spade lays still, like a skeleton, in the shadows of the corner, and other spades are fast at work! The digging has stopped. A fretful crying begins, and all is over. Father is one among the others, indistinguishable now in his death, where worms and time devour all alike; no greater, and –

_No more umble,_ thinks Uriah Heep, as he walks in borrowed mourning among the gravestones on that colorless, damp day. It is a very insubordinate scratching in the back of his raw mind – an almost heretical suggestion, that presents itself to his infinite discomfort. _Umbleness is a very good thing – if you'd like to leave behind an empty house, a burial mound, and a spade as your inheritance, and nothing more than that. _And to the boy, this boy who for ten years has been crushed underfoot at every turn, the word _ambition_, seems to be whispered, in his ear, by the devil himself.


	3. Silk and Lilacs

**Silk and Lilacs**

_036. Smell._

* * *

Once upon a time she had had a mamma, she supposed. It was long ago, of course, for she does not remember that lady herself, no, not at all; what little she does know comes from her dear papa, though he does not like, or does not care (she never did know which) to talk about the dead lady. There is also a miniature, which speaks to her mamma's looks, which lies upon papa's nightstand, and which sometimes gets a little dusty – but that is all.

Indeed, Mr. Spenlow is a busy man, and thinks but rarely of the wife that was dear to him, in her life; and he imagines the case to be fairly similar for his little daughter, who, he is glad to observe, remains very happy, even without a kind mamma. But being a busy man, he does not know Dora's little secret.

It is a habit of hers to run away, most decidedly, from her governess and to hide, in a contrary manner, in diverse avenues of the house, and to eventually forget she is hiding as she becomes fascinated with the hiding place. Upon one such occasion, she comes across a pretty trunk in her hiding room, and upon lifting its heavy lid with all the strength of her two little arms, she is dazzled to find an array of beautiful gowns and jewels heaped within, "Which," she rightly thinks, "must have belonged to my mamma." She pulls a yellow silk dress over her curly head, where its ruffled hem laps along the floor, in a golden pool; and she puts some bracelets on her arm which are much too big for her, and she is enveloped in a scent of lilacs and a feeling of melancholy, which is as new to her as the scent and dresses that had been locked away for nearly seven years.

For many months and, indeed, years, Dora sometimes makes her way to the attic, where Mama's things are, and she delights in prancing around in front of a mirror and of looking like her Mama, whom she is convinced must have been a princess; and of keeping it all a lovely secret from Papa, who might be angry with her, or make her stop, if he is to find out. Eventually, though, the dresses lose their fragrance; and Dora grows into her own silk dresses, and wouldn't dream of asking for Mama's, as they are so terribly out of fashion.

And besides – when she is by the mirror, wishing someone kind could help her with her hair; or when she is awake, quite heartbroken over her small silly problems, in the middle of the night; or in her lessons, or on her birthday, or any score of other times in which she finds something wrong or something wanting, she wonders what solace she ever found in those beautiful empty dresses, at all.


	4. Nothing to Give

**Nothing to Give**

_087. Life._

* * *

There is a portrait of his father that hangs over the mantelpiece in the best parlor. "What a liar the old man was!" he sometimes thinks, when he cares to think of it at all.

Typically speaking, he can walk by that painting any day, without so much as looking in its direction, though it is always looking at him. After all, he knew his father until he was a good six-or-seven years old – had had time to acquaint himself, so to speak, much more than all those he knew who didn't even remember their dead parent's face. Not that he was any the better for it, though.

For instance, now he leans upon the mantelpiece, smoking a cigar (which he is too young to have, but which he smokes anyway) and looks straight into the eyes of the portrait. That gentleman up there has a firm look about him; an honorable, and a dignified look. Honor and dignity are fine things, to be sure: it is quite another thing to have them painted into your portrait when you never possessed them in life.

Steerforth often likes to tell himself that, had his father lived, he might have been able to offer him more guidance, to help advise him in the areas where his unusual moralities fail to help him through, or to teach him a morality that serves his life better, and makes him the better for it.

But Steerforth knows that at six years old, he tyrannized over his dear papa, as he tyrannizes over everyone else now – over his mother, over Rosa, over Creakle and Mell, over all the boys at school. His father, in the pride of his wealth and vanity, gave him whatever he demanded, and not only that, spurred him to keep making demands – until he had had his mother sobbing on the very day of the funeral, when he stamped his foot on the carriage floor and demanded father come back, immediately.

No, James Steerforth never misses that man in the uniform in the fine portrait above the fire; though he stares up at him, sometimes, and thinks him to be just another version of all the other people still living. If his father had not taken something irreplaceable when he left this world – like good sense or integrity or an idea of right and wrong (for he was quite replaceable, himself) – what was there to miss?


End file.
